Good luck with that. "It's only as good as the network it's on - and who's on the network," as the saying goes. Consider Facebook. Despite the large number of people who hate it, look how many are still forced to use it for no reason other than the fact that their friends/family/fans/clients are all on it - and won't switch to G+ or something similar.

Good luck with that. "It's only as good as the network it's on - and who's on the network," as the saying goes. Consider Facebook. Despite the large number of people who hate it, look how many are still forced to use it for no reason other than the fact that their friends/family/fans/clients are all on it - and won't switch to G+ or something similar.

Never underestimate the power of inertia.

Inertia makes the world go round

.: I use K-Meleon - the browser you can control - but I love Pale Moon too :.

Now that I think of this, would it be that hard (from a technical point of view) to encrypt voip calls in a similar way to how gtalk can be encrypted?Also, can other clients access skype's network or does it only work with skype's client (and facebook's?) ?

... and Skype for Linux hit ver. 4.0 only just last month. I'll give it a shot, I suppose. Couldn't hurt after waiting MORE THAN 3 FECKING YEARS to get out of 2.2 Beta.

Google's Talk plugin doesn't work for me at all; first I log into gmail and hit the "Call Phone" link which brings up a dial pad, which has a link that says "Please download the voice plugin to make a call." (I have already downloaded and installed the plugin). I hit the link and it brings up a new tab with Gmail and a dial pad that says "Please download the voice plugin to make a call.". Deja Vu, man...The terminal output is just as puzzling:

boring terminal output

[000:002] Starting client channel.[000:002] Warning(clientchannel.cc:435): Unreadable or no port file. Could not initiate GoogleTalkPlugin connection[000:002] Warning(clientchannel.cc:410): Could not initiate GoogleTalkPlugin connection[000:002] GoogleTalkPlugin not running. Starting new process...[000:002] Warning(optionsfile.cc:47): Load: Could not open file, err=2[000:002] Warning(pluginutils.cc:260): Failed to get GoogleTalkPlugin path. Trying default.[000:003] Started GoogleTalkPlugin, path=/opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin[000:004] Waiting for GoogleTalkPlugin to start...[001:102] Attempting to connect to GoogleTalkPlugin...[001:102] Warning(clientchannel.cc:435): Unreadable or no port file. Could not initiate GoogleTalkPlugin connection[001:103] Warning(clientchannel.cc:410): Could not initiate GoogleTalkPlugin connection(repeat last 3 lines ad nauseum)

Oovoo, huh? I'll take a look...Whole lotta NOPE right there...

Trouble is, there really is no real alternative right now. Sure, there's a few hopefuls, but for most of the world Skype IS video chat, just like Google IS the internet, Facebook IS social networking, Microsoft IS computers, etc, etc... To get folks to give up on Skype and get on Oovoo or SIP or whatever will take a very large crowbar, which no other VOIP/Video Chat service/app has at the moment.The only way I see it happening is if Microsoft royally screws it up and makes folks drop it en masse at around the same a viable competitor appears, much like when Firefox started getting popular around the same time that IE was really getting on people's nerves.Right now, I don't see that happening.